The diagrams below present our current thoughts on the historical relationships amongst the Daly languages, although this is subject to change as more data becomes available. There is evidence to suggest that the Daly languages consist of 5 different groupings, as shown below. Language names listed vertically are considered by us, as linguists, to be in a dialectal relationship with each other. However, it is important to remember that from a community perspective all of the varieties listed here are different languages, with those listed vertically just being ‘close’ to each other.

We do not yet have the evidence to establish how these 5 groups are related to each other at a prior stage of development, although it is highly likely that the Western and Southern groups together form a higher level grouping distinct from the other three groups. We will add further information about this to this page as our research progresses.Note: You can click on the language names in the diagrams below to view the individual page for each language.